


Crave

by fourfreedoms



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Sports, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-08
Updated: 2011-08-08
Packaged: 2017-10-22 09:18:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourfreedoms/pseuds/fourfreedoms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jared and Jensen are star athletes at rival high schools with a history of enmity. Somehow they find themselves in love.</p><p>Wrote this for the prompt: <i>Jared and Jensen are on two rival school football teams and they have a secret Romeo and Juliet tryst going on. It is epic and most of all love and sunshine.</i> I changed it from football to soccer, because I don't know enough about football to write a coherent fic about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crave

The autumn air is cold enough that Jared considers wearing a sweatshirt on his morning run. He thinks he’ll go only two miles from his front door because he wants to save it for the game later.

In the twelve years that Jared’s been playing soccer, from AYSO all the way to Varsity, he’s gone up against Jersey number 14, Ackles, nearly twenty-five times. The Crescent Park game was the only game that could still tie his stomach into knots beforehand, because, call it arrogance, it was the only game he didn’t already know the outcome of before kickoff. Jared was in it, and he was in it to win, and Ackles and the Crescent Park High team were pretty much the only ones left to yank victory right out from under his feet.

Coach has them wear suits on Game days, so when Channing comes to pick him up, he’s walking out the door still struggling with his tie.

“Goddamn it!” he cries, fingers getting caught in the single Windsor. Channing laughs, reaches over the gear box and ties it right. Jared makes a face at him. “Thanks, mom.”

“Don’t let Ackles psyche you out,” Channing tells him as he pulls out into traffic.

Jared shakes his head. “I saw him downtown yesterday in front of Woodstock Pizza surrounded by his friends, and he was just sitting there silent, behind these mirrored shades, like he was James Fucking Bond.”

“He’s just an asshole, we won last year and you know it’s because of you, Jay.”

Jared shrugs and picks up Channing’s ipod to change the song.

*

Jared had almost completely recovered his equilibrium by 3 o'clock, but then walking to the gym past all the SEC posted signs for the Big Game he nearly lost it again. All day people had been wishing him good luck and showing off their red and black clothing and war paint.

Sandy, his girlfriend had given him a cupcake at lunch and asked him why he was acting so weird.

“Why? Does it show?” Jared asked, looking down at himself like he might be able to see it happening.

Some kid on JV walked past and shouted, "Crescent Park doesn't stand a chance."

"Thanks," Jared replied, ducking his head.

Sandy quirked her lips. “No, I mean, you’re good about it, but I can totally see how twitchy you’re being.”

Jared sighed. “It’s just, last year we won when nobody expected us to, and now we have a perfect season, and I’m just so worried that I’ll ruin it.”

“There are eleven other players on the field!”

Jared smiled and shook his head. “Ten.”

But the only thing he thinks as he watches the first cars from Crescent Park roar into the parking lot, windows decorated with catty messages, green and white balloons streaming off them, is Ackles’s smirking face every time he wins—his stupid friends Welling and Rosenbaum hanging out beside him jeering.

They’ve stuck the Crescent Park team in the girl’s locker room to prevent fights, so Jared won’t even see Ackles until they get out on the field.

Channing sits in front of his locker shirtless, jersey across his knees. “Hurry up, Homes.”

Jared pulls his clothes off and shoves the lot into his locker. The armpits of his dress shirt are ringed with sweat. His fingers won’t quite cooperate when he’s strapping on his shin guards.

Channing reaches over while he's not paying attention and snaps the strap of his jockstrap against his hip. Jared punches him in the shoulder on reflex and Channing grins, his chewing gum showing between his teeth.

*

With the bright red C armband wrapped tight around his bicep, and Mountford written in white letters across his chest, Jared has to pull himself together. When they huddle up before play, he tries to say something fiery and impassioned, but hell if he can remember it.

Crescent Park wins the coin toss, and they choose the kick off rather than the side with the least sun. It’s a bit like Ackles is reading his mind. Jared stares at him intently, nearly missing it when the ball is shuttled off to Crescent's left wing, a kid just moved up from their JV. Channing weaves the ball away before he gets five paces.

“You got me square,” Jared calls as the first defender challenges Channing, and accepts the ground pass that comes his way. Sweep is on him in a second, but Jared fakes out like Maradona, and gets past him only to lose it to the right back when he swings an elbow in his gut. Ref doesn’t catch it, but his right mid, Christopher, has intercepted the pass and sent it down line to Matt, the wing.

They control the ball for all of the first quarter. When the ref awards them an indirect free kick five minutes until half time, Jared takes a moment to huddle his team together.

 

“Something’s fishy. They’re trying to tire us out. They’re not even passing to Ackles and god knows he’s open,” he sent a swift glare to the backs and midfielders. “So all we should do is get one in, just one, and then lock down, don’t let anything through. Fuck trying to rack more points.” The guys nod and break up so that Matt can take the kick. Ackles sneaks it away from their midfielder and is charging the half-line, but Mountford’s stopper, left, and right backs converge on him at once. He loses possession.

They score two minutes later after Rosenbaum deflects it out off his thigh, and Matt’s corner kick connects with Channing’s header right at the back post.

Things start getting aggressive the second half because Crescent Park is desperate to score. He sees Ackles coming up the line and slide tackles to take the ball out from under him. Ackles catapults up into the air and lands hard on top of Jared. Ackles glowers down at him for a long moment, nose inches above Jared’s, before rolling off.

“Number thirteen, tackle the ball, not the man,” the ref shouts at Jared, but he's lost in thought about Ackles' glare, the steel in his green eyes. He doesn’t even protest. The ref sighs. “Indirect, where the lineman is pointing, number fourteen.”

Ackles nods and sets the ball up, going for a boot that’ll send it to Welling hanging out by the penalty box. Jared jumps and takes the ball hard to chest, deflecting it too far from his body to run it up himself, but Christopher is already running in and dribbling it up the field. Ackles stares at him like Jared just nutmegged him and he can’t quite believe it.

It sets the tone for the rest of the match. They win, 2-0, after Christopher miraculously scores off a goal kick. Jared barely touches the ball. Ackles stays on him so tight he can do little more than shout man-on and direct passes back and forth.

*

They won, but Jared can’t escape feeling like he played a shitty game. When he gets out of the showers almost everybody has gone to the carnival fundraiser for funnel cake and garlic fries and candy apples. Jared doesn’t really feel like going.

There are a few people milling around in their cars in the parking lot. Jared plans to bike home and he’s heading over to the bike cages when he’s stopped by Ackles. “Hey, good game.”

Jared stares at him. Ackles leans up against the hood of a sweet red Charger. “Guess so.”

“You want a ride?” Ackles offers.

Jared looks around the parking lot. “Is this the part where you carry my unsuspecting self off and beat me up with your buddies?”

Ackles raises a brow. “The only person who knows I’m still here is you.” Jared could say a million bratty things to that, but he’s kind of curious why Ackles waited around to offer him a ride. Ackles clears his throat. “So where are you going?”

Jared looks away. The last remaining group of people speed off, arms trailing out the windows in the California sunshine. “Home, I guess. My sister and parents are going to be at the Carnival, so it’ll probably be quiet.”

Ackles breathes deep, like he's working up the courage to say something. Jared stares at him, waiting.“You wanna grab dinner with me?”

Ackles is really pushing this. Jared shrugs. “Yeah okay, you can tell me how you do that matrix-y kick thing.”

“Cool.” Ackles smiles. Not a smirk. An actual smile. Jared is a little taken aback.

*

Jared can’t call Ackles that to his face, so he formally introduces himself while they’re waiting at a green light. “I’m Jared by the way.”

He blinks at him, half an eye on the light. “Yeah, I know, I’m Jensen.”

Jared feels bad for not remembering his first name.

Jensen wants to go to a thai place, but it’s out of Jared’s budget, and he doesn’t like stuff like that anyway. The face he makes is enough to communicate this.

“If you have to have Asian food than I’ll do Chinese, but nothing more exotic than that.”

Jensen laughs. “Nah, you know, fuck it. You want Vive Sol?”

Jared loves Vive Sol. They make the cheesiest quesadillas, the best guacamole, and they fry the tortilla chips up themselves. All for an insanely cheap price. They pull up and the parking lot is nearly full. There’s like twenty people ahead of them. Jensen looks apologetic.

“I don’t mind waiting.”

Jensen nods, catches himself in one of the many mirrors hanging on the walls, and ducks away from it. Weird. He’s not ugly or maimed or anything. There’s a bruise on his cheek from the game--probably Jared's doing--but Jared’s never seen such girly features on a guy who looks nothing like a girl. His parents have got to be real proud to have such an attractive kid.

It’s nearly forty-five minutes of companionable silence before they're seated. Jared doesn’t really want to talk, he's tired and a little bit cranky. He gets the feeling that Jensen is sort of shy—if only because of his conversational stumbling in the car about music and classes and movies. Jensen doesn’t seem to like talking; he filled up the air because that’s what people do.

Jared manages to convince Jensen to get Flautas along with their entrees and their side of guacamole. Jensen dishes up the spiciest of the salsa with a toothy grin. Jared laughs and sweeps up the bit that fell on the table with the pad of his finger before bringing it to his mouth.

“Oh, nasty.” Jensen shakes his head.

“My body will thank me for a few pathogens.”

Jensen leaned back in his chair. “Yeah unless some kid with mono spat all over this table.”

“Okay, they’d have to drown it in spit, like be licking the table up and down multiple times.” The waitress drops off the flautas as he says this. She laughs at him before departing, expression quizzical. Jared leans in over the food, “I think she might have thought table was a euphemism for something else, man.”

Jensen looks like he’s trying to picture what depraved sex act that might describe, and Jared turns determinedly on his food to keep from cackling with laughter.

*

He’s not sure how dinner became a movie and a movie became a walk up in the hills. Its freezing out so high and they keep having to run off the road to avoid cars, but the lights are amazing. They can see the entire county below, spread out like a glittering carpet.

Jared turns and shouts up at the ledges, “CATHY!”

He nearly dies of shock when Jensen shouts back, “HEATHCLIFF!”

“You’ve read Wuthering Heights?”

“Yeah,” Jensen shakes his head, a shy grin spreading across his face, “Mrs. Ackles didn’t raise no stupid sons.”

“I hate that book,” Jared starts climbing up a rocky ledge, he looks back over his shoulder at Jensen who is limned in the weak light of the moon. “But I’ve always wanted to shout that.”

“You’re really…different.” Jensen hoists himself up after him, palms scrabbling on the loose gravel.

He grabs the back of Jensen’s shirt and uses it to tug him up. “Different? Like in a bad way.”

“You licked a table.” Jensen sits down close because it’s fucking cold.

He can feel every time Jensen breathes out. “I didn’t _lick_ a table, I ate something off of it.”

“Even whores know better than that.” Jensen pokes him in the side, finding his ticklish spot.

Jared holds his arm away and says, “What’s a step down from a whore? I mean, if I’m worse than a whore.”

“I dunno, politician? Lawyer?”

*

When Jensen finally drops him off Jared has his phone number. He waits a week before calling.

They never talk about soccer or school and it's refreshing. Jensen invites him over when the house is empty and they play Call of Duty and Super Smash Brothers. Jensen has a poster of Pelé over his bed. His jerseys are spilling out of his laundry hamper. There’s five billion trophies stuffed into the bookshelf and a collection of sunglasses on the dresser.

Jared likes Jensen. He thinks back to that fiery cocky player he knows on the field, the one who trash talks and throws elbows with intent. The shy blushing guy who worries his lip between his teeth that Jared is just getting to know is a completely different person.

He doesn’t say anything about Jared’s girlfriend. Or girls at all. He thinks maybe Jensen has a crush on him. He doesn’t stop hanging out with him. He sort of thinks maybe he should, but Jensen is like silence after hours and hours of noise.

*

On Halloween, after Alyssa’s party, he tells Jensen to come by. He’s taking off the remains of his knight costume when he hears Jensen talking to his mom downstairs. Jensen shows up at his door a few minutes later, dressed like a Greaser. His hair is falling into his face and his white t-shirt is smudged, but the effect is perfect.

“Shit, how did you get into those jeans?” Jared asks, eyes dropping to his legs.

“I had to lie down on my bed to zip them up.” Jensen gingerly sits in Jared’s easy chair. “Beauty is pain, man.”

Jared shakes his head. “Whatever, you wanna get out of them?”

He doesn’t really think about how it sounds until Jensen’s cheeks flood with color.

Then Jared’s leaning in, fingertips sliding back to cup his skull, mouth brushing across Jensen’s. He’s not sure what possessed him, but it had looked so easy, made him feel the same way as when Sandy first unbuttoned her shirt and the curve of her breasts peaked out around the fabric.

Jensen tips his head and kisses back, lips sliding together before parting. Jared is officially tonguing a guy. He’s bent over and crouched all weird on the floor, so he pulls Jensen up by the lapels of his leather jacket, never breaking contact with his mouth and drags him over to the bed. The sound Jensen makes when Jared settles on top of him gets him hard.

He sucks on Jensen’s tongue, tastes sugar, a hint of chocolate, and the barest sting of citric acid. Jensen had eaten his Halloween candy already.

He’s having trouble breathing—Jensen’s fingertips are running over the small of his back and he’s tugging at Jared’s lower lip with his teeth. Jared doesn’t know what he’s feeling.

But he’s struggling to peel Jensen’s jeans off and keep their mouths connected at the same time. Jensen’s fingers clench on the small of his back, nails digging in.

“JARED!” His mother calls up the stairs. “JENSEN’S MOM IS ON THE PHONE, SHE WANTS TO KNOW IF HE’S SPENDING THE NIGHT.”

Jared pulls back from Jensen and looks down at him. Jensen nods. “YEAH, HE’S SPENDING THE NIGHT.” he calls back down, his voice breaking as Jensen grips his dick through his jeans.

*

“I’m breaking up with Sandy.”

“What?” Channing looks at him, straw of his drink still in his mouth. “Is there someone else?”

“No, yes—I don’t know.” They’re eating lunch at The Counter, a burger place on El Centro. Jared licks garlic aioli off his thumb.

“Who the hell is she?” Channing holds his burger up to his mouth like he’s forgotten he was about to take a bite. “That’s going to cause so much shit, man, you’re going to be ALL over the gossip page in the school newspaper. Alexis is going to crucify you. You said no to her at Sadie Hawkins, remember?”

“At Crescent Park,” Jared says quickly. Channing looks at him, mouth open before laughing, a ‘you dog’ expression written in highlighter on his face. Jared had been planning to tell him, he was going to come right out and say it, but now he’s lost his nerve completely. “Look, I don’t really want to talk about it, I just thought you should know.”

Channing lifts a shoulder. “Whatever, means I can ask Sandy out.”

Jared tosses his napkin at him. “Asshole.”

“What?” Channing laughs. “I just felt like we needed a moment of levity right there.”

*

They’re lying on Jensen’s bed, a queen with a pillowtop mattress that by far trumps his own. Jensen tries to coax him out of a nap with a backrub under his shirt, but it’s having the opposite effect. Even when his touch turns wicked, Jared’s too relaxed to do anything but imagine it.

“I’ve liked you since I was fifteen,” Jensen whispers into his skin.

That wakes Jared up. He knew Jensen had a crush on him for awhile. He’d sort of figured that was what was going on long before Halloween. Not that he had even been sure Jensen was gay. When they were younger, Channing had some really mixed up feelings for an older boy on the team, but he was positively gleeful about girls, so it’s not like you could just slam a label home.

“You waited three years to make your move?” Jared asks, propping his chin on his fist. Jensen’s freckles are standing out over his blush and his eyes are feverish. His hand hasn’t stopped moving on Jared’s back.

“If I’d known you’d be so easy, I would’ve done it sooner.” Jared yanks the pillow out from under his body and tries to smother him with it. Jensen laughs so hard he’s difficult to pin down. Jared has to straddle his thighs. Jensen shakes under him, face scarlet from laughter. Jared whacks him with the pillow, until Jensen has no laughter left and Jared’s arms are heavy.

Jensen runs a hand up his thigh and pulls, seating him firmly on his dick. “Looks like you’ve woken up.”

Jared reaches down and traces the bow of Jensen’s lip. “You gonna suck me off?”

Jensen’s face takes on a questioning cast. They’ve never done this before. Jared thinks maybe he should say he was just teasing. Jensen throws him off, dumping him into the pillow-less space on the mattress. Jared’s mouth opens to take it back, but then Jensen hooks his fingers in Jared’s shorts and tugs them down his thighs. Jared’s dick bobs free and the look Jensen gives him before dropping his head to kiss the tip is pure challenge. Jared has to cover his eyes with his arm, suddenly embarrassed.

It’s messy, Jensen’s spit runs down his dick, but his lips are tight around the head and he’s using his tongue to make up for the fact that he can’t take a lot into his mouth. Sandy blew him a lot and so he knows that thrusting up into Jensen’s mouth like he wants to is a really big no no. When Jensen jabs his tongue hard just below the slit, Jared can’t stop himself from crying out.

Jensen’s lips stretch into a smile around his dick, and he smooths a thumb across Jared’s hip. Jared pulls his arm away from his face and reaches for the wooden headboard. He needs to anchor himself with something before he goes flying off into the night.

Jensen’s bobbing in earnest now—finally hitting his stride, and Jared doesn’t have a hope in the world to last. “G—gonna come,” he says, looking down his body at Jensen who stares right back at him. Jensen pulls off at the last second and Jared shoots on his own shirt and the sheets.

Jensen coughs and wipes his mouth, but the look on his face says it’s worth it.

*

Jared could play soccer forever, but he knows that once he gets past college there’s not a lot of options. The clubs in Europe don’t even look at American players, and Jared doesn’t want to play for the Earthquakes or fucking FC Dallas. Maybe he could go out for the Chicago Fire, but that’s hoping he doesn’t injure himself in the NCAA. That’s hoping he gets recruited.

But if he can’t play soccer, and he knows that’s really more than realistic, he doesn’t know what he _will_ do. He doesn’t seem to have any other talent. Art class was a disaster, his four years of trumpet still make his family members cringe, he’s a fine student, but not a great one. Jared is aimless. He could act or be a vet or go to law school, but he doesn’t know how one figures these things out. He’s starting to feel like he has to know yesterday.

Jensen wants to be a doctor in sports medicine. He’s got it all figured out. He’s applying to the best schools he can get into, not the ones that’ll give him the most money. Jared wants his advice, but he doesn’t want to ask. Doesn’t want to look like he’s any less figured out.

“What’s bothering you?” Jensen asks over a dinner of Easymac. Jared’s parents have left for a week to visit his grandparents, because his grandfather had a heart attack. Megan’s young enough to be pulled out of school, but if Jared leaves, he’ll miss something important, so he stayed behind.

“Nothing.” He toys with his food.

“Will it make it any worse if you tell me?”

Jared sets his fork down. “I have no ambition, none!”

“So?” Jensen asks. “You don’t have to know right this second.”

Jared sighs. “I feel like if I don’t get a clue, I’m going to fuck it all up.”

“That’s what college is for.” Jensen takes another bite of his food. “I’ll still love you, even if you become a hobo.”

Jared jerks in his chair in surprise and Jensen looks firmly down at his plate. He can't take it back now. Jared doesn't want him to.

*

They couldn’t expect to keep it a secret forever, but they certainly didn't expect to get found out the way they did. They were up in the hills again, blanket laid out across the hood of Jensen’s car. If it had been simply that, maybe they could’ve explained it away, but Jensen had his head on Jared’s shoulder, and his arm thrown across his body. There was no fooling anybody.

A pick-up truck powered up the bend a little too fast, its headlights casting out and blinding them. “God, I hate people,” Jensen said, voice muffled by the hood of Jared’s sweatshirt.

Jared turned to watch as the car braked and then reversed back to them. Jared thought maybe they were going to ask for directions, but he felt his heart give out when the window rolled down and Welling stuck his head out. “Jensen? What the fuck?”

Jensen scrambled off of him. “It’s not what you think.”

Jared could barely see beyond the glow of the brights.

“Oh yeah, and what do I think?” Welling shot back. “That you’re a fucking fag for Padalecki?”

He can hear another voice in the car then, “That’s Padalecki? Je-sus!”

“No, christ, we’re just friends,” Jensen pleads with his friends, “you’ve got to understand.”

But they don’t understand, they leave Jensen and Jared in a trail of dust with tossed off cocksucker comment over their shoulders. Jensen won’t speak to him on the ride back, like this is somehow his fault.

*  
When Jared goes to school on Monday everybody knows. “Somebody at Crescent Park?” Channing puts forward when Jared arrives in the bike cages. He looks like he’s been waiting for awhile.

“I tried to tell you.”

“You’re so stupid, Jared, so stupid—you could’ve fucked their only male cheerleader and it would’ve been less of a deal.”

“Well, I didn’t want their only male cheerleader.” Jared tries to brush past him. He doesn’t need this. Jensen won’t answer his phone or his e-mails. His mother won’t tell him where he is. He doesn’t need a lecture about how much of a mess he’s in. He’s quite capable of realizing the big picture himself.

“You couldn’t think with your head instead of your dick for one second?”

Jared whirled on him. “Jensen was my head the entire way, okay? I didn’t have any doubts about what I was doing.”

Channing sighed. “I wish you had.”

He leaves Jared at his locker which is dented in and spray-painted with fag in Crescent Park colors. Looks like Jensen’s teammates really weren’t taking it well.

*

It’s cold and gray, it’ll probably rain. He’s got a shell under his jersey, like most of the team. Jared feels sick. His team has been remarkably good about the whole thing. There’s some awkwardness while they’re changing. Christopher asks if Jared is going to start hitting on them all, but it’s fine. He knows these guys, they’ve been playing with him since he barely had enough coordination to run and kick the ball forward at the same time.

When they set up for kick off, Jensen’s head is bowed down between his shoulders, like he can't hold it up. Jared isn’t worried about the game. They’ve got a perfect season, held onto it right to this point, but Jared’s already lost. Jensen won’t look at him.

Within the first five minutes Welling has bloodied his nose, an elbow to the face, before hooking the ball away. No way it goes unnoticed when Jared is six foot four and getting an arm up to his face takes some serious effort, not to mention he goes over like a felled oak. He’s surrounded by his own players and the trainer when he manages to focus again. Through their legs, he can see the other team taking a knee. Jensen hovers a few feet away, but he’s looking at the bleachers, not Jared.

There’s blood running into his mouth and he coughs, desperately trying to wipe it away with the sleeve of his shell.

“Jared, I need you to look at me. I need to see if it’s broken.” It’s Phil, the trainer, Jared stares up at him, and Phil feels along the bridge of his nose.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Jared shakes him off, accepts a towel from somebody and gets to his feet. The bleachers erupt in clapping. He shanks his penalty kick.

The rest of the game is a disgrace. Everybody is playing rough, heedless of shoulders and knees. Channing gets a cleat to the chest when he comes down the line to score. Chris shoves a midfielder hard in retaliation, and the kid goes skidding through the mud.

The dampness is adding speed to the ball that they aren’t quite fast enough to deal with.

By half Jared is beat. Welling got a yellow card, and coach pulled Chris off before he could get one. “Evans, get your head in the game and out of your dick,” he shouted, before benching him. Chris sits on the bench with his head in his hands, barely bothering to watch the game. Jared understands how he feels.

He drinks nearly an entire bottle of water and wolfs down at least four orange slices while pretending to listen to coach talk. Past coach's shoulders he sees Crescent Park's team glaring at him like he’s Osama Bin Laden. If this is what MLS is going to be like, Jared doesn’t even want that. He’ll find something else; because there’s no way he can fit himself back inside the closet again.

Jensen scores off of a throw in. His face slips out of its horrible sober mask for one small second, but his teammates don’t cheer him or go anywhere near him and it slips away. Jared glares at Welling. He goes and loops an arm around Channing’s neck, drawing him in close. He half expects Channing to resist, be like, “hey, not now that you’re queer,” but he comes in anyway.

“We’ve got to beat those motherfuckers, okay?” He takes a deep breath. “We’ve got to make them hurt.”

Channing grins at him, elbowing him companionably in the side. It makes Jared's eyes burn.

He turns to get ready for the kick off and catches Jensen’s eyes on him. He looks upset, which is rich because “it’s over” were two words Jared totally didn’t even know English for, and Jensen had shown remarkable aptitude with them.

When the kickoff sends the ball to the sideline, Jared manages to pull it out of the scrum that starts, darting up the field, the defenders lost behind him. He has to pull this off himself, because anybody he might pass to will be offsides. The goalie, Chris Kane, is glaring at him like, “Not today, asshole, not my goal,” but it feels right and Jared lets the ball sail right over his head into the top corner of the net.

Suddenly he’s swamped by bodies.

The tide turns. Crescent Park keeps playing like they’re the mafia, but Mountford has come together now. The slide tackling and undercuts are barely making a difference. Jensen has to carry his team all on his own. At least that’s something. Jared doesn’t have to worry about scouts throwing Jensen over when he loses this game, because it’s clear his team is a complete wreck and he's the only one still going. Jensen plays beautifully, he’s got Jared’s mids running their asses off to keep the ball away from him. But it’s no good, because Jared’s team is a new machine.

They win 3-1. Jensen’s teammates lie down in the mud, heads in their hands. Jensen himself walks right off the field. Doesn’t even stay for the obligatory 'good game.' Jared’s classmates come down off the bleachers and hoist him up to their shoulders. His face nearly falls apart when he tries to fake a smile.

Nobody notices.

*

Jared wakes up with a start when his window opens and a leg pokes through. Jensen swings the rest of his body into the room.

“Jesus, how did you get up here without killing yourself?” Jensen shrugs. Jared makes a noise in the back of his throat. “Look I don’t know why you’re—”

“I love you.” Jensen slides into the bed with him. He’s still wearing his shoes and his leather jacket. He smells like trees and autumn.

“You—” Jared tries again, hitching himself up on his elbows.

“I’m sorry,” Jensen interrupts, staring at him earnestly.

Jared drops his head back to his pillow. “I—”

“Can you forgive me?”

Jared snorts. “If you let me get a word in edgewise.”

Jensen reaches forward and traces Jared’s shoulder. “Just wanted to get that all out in the open.”

“Well,” Jared pauses, “you’re a real dipshit, but it's uh...it's mutual.”

Jensen kisses him, Jared’s just sliding into it when he thinks of something else. “Also, your teammates fucking suck!”

Jensen laughs. “That was my last game playing with them anyway.” He reaches out and laces their fingers together.

“They were your friends,” Jared says softly, remembering all the years he saw Tom and Mike running around with Jensen, seemingly inseparable.

Jensen sighs. “Not really though.” Jared is really lucky to have Channing. He wants to rush to the nearest church and say a rosary in his honor. Jensen clears his throat. “I haven’t slept in days.”

Jared pulls the back the covers. “Take off your shoes first.”

“Yes, sir.”

When Jensen slides back into bed Jared realizes that sick manic feeling he’s been carrying around with him for the past several days has finally melted away.


End file.
